Week One: Homemade broth in the Pressure Cooker

My Pressure Cooker has been living in my closet for a couple of years, but I have decided to liberate it.  I have recently re-discovered the amazing properties of pressure cooking, and am loving the meals that come out of it! 

Todays blog will be about homemade broth, but check back for more great ways to cook in the P.C.

Pressure Cookers:  Stove top model, and electric model.

A "P.C." is able to cook food much faster than conventional ways (oven, stovetop) without a loss of flavor, and without sacrificing texture or moistness. 

I love to have homemade broth on hand.  I make it in big batches, cooking it for hours on the stove top, and then freezing it in smaller amounts.  Homemade broth, as in most anything homemade, is so much richer in flavor that I prefer it enough to make broth whenever I need it.  I work hard at staying ahead of the game, but sometimes I just do not have hours available to devote to broth making. 

Homemade vegetable stock only takes 5 minutes.

It is fairly easy to make broth, but the P.C. makes it faster which can also mean easier to fit into your lifestyle. 

You can make your own broth at home, with or without a P.C. 
To make a meat broth in the P.C., you can follow this recipe:
2 pounds beef shanks or stewing meat, or
   6 chicken wings and/or a carcass (think rotiserrie chicken)
2 onions, quartered, with the skin
2 smashed cloves of garlic
3 carrots, cut into chunks
2-3 celery stalks, with leaves
2 bay leaves, fresh or dried
Parsley, cilantro or basil sprigs including the stems
Salt and pepper
Optional additional ingredients:

• Potatoes
• Sweet potatoes
• Squash
• Mushrooms, stems or whole
• Corn or corn cobs
• Scallions
• Shallots

Using food "scraps" for homemade broth.

Cover with water by an inch but remember not to fill your P.C. more than 2/3 full.  Lock the lid in place and bring your cooker to high pressure; cook for an hour if using beef, 30 minutes with chicken.  Allow the pressure to drop naturally, which means remove from heat (stovetop) or do nothing (electric) until you see (or hear) the pressure bob drop.  If using an electric model, the unit automatically keeps the broth warm for a set amount of time.  (Check your manual.) 

The next step is to strain your broth, and you can do by pouring your stock into a colander placed over another container to collect the delicious stock. 

Pour into a colander,

Be sure to place a container underneath to collect the delicious broth.

You can now chill this overnight to remove excess fat--which will float on the top and be easy to remove with a slotted spoon.  Pour into containers and store in your freezer.  If you generally use very small amounts, freeze in an ice cube tray; once frozen you can put these cubes into a plastic bag for easy access. 

If you want a clear broth, you will need to strain it further.

Pour through a kitchen towel for a clear broth. 

Clear broth.

Notice that the broth in the photo above has a lot more color than a canned broth.  It also has a lot more flavor!

Be sure to store your broth in clean containers with a label that states the type of broth and the date you made it.  I sometimes use ziploc bags which I can stack one on top of another.  It might be easier to put them on a flat sheet pan to freeze, and then stack them up in the freezer. 


Once you discover how easy and delicious this is, you may not ever buy store bought again!

What to do with Crystallized Honey

Crystallized honey is perfectly good honey, just difficult to get out of the bottle.  One way that people deal with this mess is to put the honey bottle in the microwave and heat it up.  I would like to tell you all not to do this.  You will change the properties of the honey by boiling it.  Also, if your honey is in a plastic bottle, you might notice that the shape of the bottle changes a bit when you microwave your honey, and that probably means your honey is no longer pure honey. 

It is not harmful to you to eat honey that has crystallized and you can eat it in that form.  However I am not sure about honey in a plastic jar that gets heated in the microwave.  I have thrown out jars of honey that crystallize in plastic jars, unless I can find a way to remove the honey and safely return it to it's pourable state.

Crystallized honey in glass jars.

During hot months, or if you live in a warm climate,  you can simply set your honey jars out in the sun and let Mother Nature do the work.  It may take awhile but it's easy!

If you are dealing with crystallized honey and don't have that option, here are some other suggestions. 

The water does not need to be higher than the honey to de-crystallize it.

Store your honey in glass jars because it is much easier to deal with it in glass jars.  Put water into a deep saucepan and heat until boiling.  Remove pan from heat and submerge your honey jar directly in the hot water.  Leave it until the honey is clear; repeat if necessary. 

Crystallized honey can be a "solid mess"!

 If you have more than a jar or two of crystallized honey as we sometimes do, you can use a double boiler set-up to dissolve the crystals from your honey.  Put crystallized honey into the top of a double boiler or a stainless steel bowl.

Create a double boiler with a stainless steel bowl and ordinary saucepan.

Set that atop a pan with simmering water; be sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of your double boiler. 

Leave your honey to heat up, stirring occasionally, until the honey is clear.  Pour back into clean bottles and enjoy!

Bucket of crystallized honey.

 We deal with honey every year.  Some years we get the most beautiful, delicious honey; another year we deal with a lot of crystallizing.  Honey just varies from one year to another.  When you have buckets of honey, you learn a lot about the many ways to re-create clear, pourable honey.  In the photo above, I actually used an ice cream spade to scoop out honey!

More ways to use fresh herbs

Many recipes call for fresh herbs which do add wonderful flavors to the foods we cook, but do you ever find that you bought a "bunch" or a package of some fresh herb when you only needed a small amount?  Do you hold on to it with the idea in mind that you will use it somewhere else, but then you don't know what to do with it? 

Here are a couple of very quick and easy ways to enjoy the fresh herbs weeks or even months later!

Compound Butter!

Compound butters can be made at home and you probably have all the ingredients on hand!  You simply whip together real unsalted butter with herbs, spices or aromatic liquids using a stand mixer or hand held mixer.  Then form it into a cylinder shape, wrap in plastic wrap or parchment paper, and chill until it is firm enough to be sliced. These butters can be melted on top of meats and vegetables, used as a spread or used to finish various sauces. You can also store this well wrapped in the freezer for a few months.

Try fresh garlic, parsley, butter and salt for your own garlic spread.   You can make it more spreadable (and delicious) by incorporating some olive oil or cream cheese!

Pesto!

Always a classic but even more delicious when you make it at home!  I blogged a How-to on making pesto in late September.  Again, incredibly more delicious than store bought,  and it can be stored for months in the freezer.

Seasoned Salt!

Salt is a natural preservative!  It's been the way to preserve fish and meats before the invention of the refrigerator!  It's also great to make your own seasoned salt using fresh herbs, garlic, citrus zest, etc.  All you need beyond the ingredients is a good knife and some time to work these ingredients together! 

Use on meats, vegetables, your breakfast cereal.  Okay, maybe not that last one....

The seasoned salts you buy in the store can be made right at home, and as with anything else that is homemade, it will be even more delicious!  Try it and see for yourself!

Using and Preserving Fresh Herbs

I just got home from the store with some fresh parsley.  The store that I buy mine at usually has a sprayer that keeps the parsley pretty wet.  I select a bunch and put it in a plastic bag so that it doesn't make other things that I am buying also get wet.


This is what my parsley looks like when I get home from the store.  Notice how wet it is?

Unwrap your herbs if they are wet. 

Notice how some of the leaves (near the stems) are already bruised and crushed? 

Also the way it is wrapped with the leaves and stems tied together is a problem.  You know that those leaves are going to decay quickly, especially if you leave your bundle of parsley wrapped up and in the plastic bag. 

Very mixed and wet parsley.

I think I have thrown out parsley more times that I would like to count because of leaving it wrapped the way I brought it home from the store.  It really is a turn off when it smells rotten and is slimy to handle.

You really need to separate the individual stems of parsley when you first bring it home from the store. 

 Spread your parsley out on towels so that you can pull out the leaves that will rot and ruin the rest of the bunch.  Sort the stems by length if you want to put them into glasses or vases with water and you can keep them right on your countertop.

Short stems in smaller vase, Longer stems in tall glass. 

When I clean up the parsley like this, I will actually have fresh parsley on hand for at least a week.  Remember to change the water though, just like with fresh flowers.

You can use parsley in many ways:  freshly minced as a garnish, stems and all in a pasta sauce, or before they wilt you can throw them into the freezer and add to your soup/stock.  

Dry the parsley well and store in an airtight container. 

The very wet stems and leaves put into the freezer for later.

If you hate to throw out all those stems and leaves that were separated, just put them into the freezer and use later.  Using this method I will not waste any of the fresh herbs that I am paying top dollar for this winter.

Here's another way to preserve fresh herbs for even longer:

Make Herb-Garlic Salt.

 You can easily make your fresh herbs into a seasoned salt for meat, vegetables, or a delicious compound butter.

First, remove the stems from the leaf.  Finely chop with fresh garlic cloves and Kosher salt. 

Chop it all together: herb, salt and garlic.

Keep chopping.  You want this finely minced.

Add more salt and keep chopping.

Mix this into butter and it will keep for months in the freezer.  Put on vegetables, rice, pasta, whole grains, potatoes, or use as a spread on bread. 

When it is finely chopped, it is ready to use! 

This is one of the tricks you can use at home to make your fresh herbs go farther--especially at this time of year when many of us can't grown them. 

And feel free to pass it on....

Find more information at my website:  www.now-youre-cooking.com

Got Bananas, Take Two

I was cleaning up my blogs the other day, deleting the ones I started and never finished, and with just one click I accidentally deleted the banana blog that I had just written!  Dang, why isn't there a do-over button on this site?!

So here is my re-write:
The other morning my husband looked at our banana situation (he eats a banana every morning) and said "last night these were green and today they are turning brown".  I struggle with having some ready-to-eat bananas for his daily fix, and buying bananas that are not-ready-to-eat but will soon be ready-to-eat. 

Ripe or over-ripe?

I oftentimes would take overripe bananas and turn them into some delicious baked good, like my sister Mary Lou's Banana Bread.  Since so many people now avoid baked goods, that isn't always a viable solution. 

Of course you can freeze the bananas, but I am disgusted with the liquid-like mess they become.  And in the interest of full disclosure I will admit to finding blackened bananas in my freezer that were beyond use.  I think I could find that in the freezers of many well intentioned cooks!

 

However, if you want to save your bananas in the freezer, who am I to stop you?  I find unpeeled frozen bananas particularly unappealing, so be sure to peel them before freezing.  

Here is my newest discovery for the overripe banana dilemma.  Peel your bananas and cut them into chunks.

Put the chunks onto a flat pan or plate and freeze them for several hours or overnight. 

When you remove these from the freezer you can put them all together in one container, such as a plastic bag, and they will remain separate from one another so that you can take out as many pieces as you want.  Because they are cut up they will also thaw faster, but we love to use them frozen.

Here are some suggestions:

If you have a high speed blender, put several chunks of banana in and turn on as high as it goes for a couple of minutes, until smooth.  Voila!  Banana ice Cream!  Really, you do not need to add anything else, but chocolate sauce and peanut butter might be nice.

Make a Banana Split, smoothie style.  Add strawberries (fresh, frozen, jam), pineapple, chocolate sauce and yogurt or ice cream.  Turn on the blender and mix until smooth and ready to spoon or drink, depending upon the thickness you are after.  You can add milk if it's too thick.

Throw a few chunks into any fruit smoothie.  Bananas make them taste better!

Pull out one or two chunks and eat as is--frozen.  Or dip into the peanut butter and coat with some mini chocolate chips.  This is a great little snack but keep it a secret unless you have a LOT of frozen bananas.  They will disappear in no time!

Try these ideas out! Let me know what you come up with!

Roasted vegetables

I love to roast vegetables in the oven rather than steam them. I think that the dry heat can really bring out some great color, texture and flavor.

Here are a few ideas for you. Cut onions into thick slices and place on a rimmed baking sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil; sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Put in a hot (400-425 degree) oven for 20-30 minutes. 

Allow your onions to develop some nice color.

Roasted onions can be eaten as is!

 When your onions are done roasting they will be soft and taste sweet.  You can use these in other dishes, or just enjoy them as they are!

You can roast just about any vegetables you want.

In the photo above you can see sliced mushrooms, sliced zucchini, and cut up carrots.  Follow the same procedure--drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and put on a baking sheet in a hot oven.

After roasting they should have color.

 You can cut up potatoes in any sort of shape you want:  sliced, diced, cubed.  Use a variety of potatoes: small red, yukon gold, fingerlings, sweet potatoes or even yams. 

You will want to flip these to get color on both sides.

Try this with cauliflower and broccoli also.  They roast up beautifully and really make for a colorful side dish. 

This can be the main course it's so beautiful!

Your vegetable side dishes don't need to be complicated to be delicious. 

Serve up a variety of roasted vegetables.

 These vegetables are all using the same preparation:  Cut, drizzle and roast.  Try your hand at this!

Seasonal Sides--something different for the holidays.

I won't be doing the traditional turkey dinner this year. No mashed potatoes, dressing, and gravy. No candied anything. No green bean casserole.  Having a number of family members being vegetarian has had me trying different dishes, especially sides. I have been at this for about 10 years now, and I think that these dishes have to be considered for what they offer.  First of all, they are much more attractive and colorful.

Pictured above:  raw brussel sprouts, pomegranate seeds, chopped almonds, and shaved Parmesan cheese. 

I think that the colors of food in a traditional Thanksgiving is very monochromatic, and BORING.  Additionally, it seems to be mostly mushy and soft: mashed potatoes, stuffing, candied something, overcooked vegetables. No thank you, give me some seasonal freshness and textures,

Try stuffing your squash with a combination of the squash meat, nuts and a whole grain pilaf. Serve it right in the shell for individual servings.   Here's a great way to have food that is chewy, colorful, and offers a variety of textures and flavors. 

Want to keep it simple but add a big wow of color?  Roast cut up vegetables of different textures and colors. All you need is salt, pepper, olive oil and a hot oven.  Let the vegetables brown a bit. If you haven't tried this before, drop what you are doing today and get everything you need.  Cut up the vegetables so they are all about the same size and roast in a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes. If they aren't beautiful yet, get an oven thermometer and calibrate your oven!

We will be having some sort of whole grain side dish too. Whole grains are healthy, chewy, textural, and will satisfy hunger longer.  Here's an example that ties in nicely to the colorless meal:

A little cucumber, some dried cranberries, Feta cheese, and Farro. This adds a lot of color ( red, green, white and light brown); a variety of textures and flavors (chewy Farro, sweet dried fruit, salty Feta, fresh cucumber).  You can add in anything you think will be colorful and interesting: sautéed mushrooms, roasted cubes of butternut squash, another grain (wild rice anyone?), diced shallots or pickled red onion, maybe even some diced beets.  You have my permission! 

The dressing can also make an impact on your taste buds. For a fall menu, try citrus fruits,  pomegranate juice, or cider vinegar with some olive oil, salt and pepper. Just use the ratio of 1 part acid (juice or vinegar) to 3 parts oil (olive, vegetable, walnut, etc.). Play around with this and tailor it to your tastes.  A homemade dressing is very easy and flavorful. Just put your ingredients in a jar with a tight fitting lid and shake!  Taste before adding to your salad and adjust as needed. 

Above:  shredded brussel sprouts, bacon, pomegranate seeds, Parmesan cheese. 

If you are not sure how you might like these dishes, you should try a cooking class. Cook it, taste it, and learn how to tweak it for your individual tastes.  

As I always say, "A recipe is just a suggestion, or a starting point.  You can make it once following the instructions, and then make it your own."

I am wishing you all colorful holiday meals!